Next year is going to be the make or break year for Collins tenure.
Bill Connelly has pointed out that if a staff is going to be successful somewhere you almost always see it by year 3. Now, if you want to say Collins' first year was Year 0, then year 3 is next year.
Anything less than 6 wins next year and I simply will have no faith that he can be successful here.
The bigger issue right now is the defense, not the offense. The defense hasn't improved anywhere in 3 years under these coaches. Frankly, to my eyes they look worse. You can blame that on the players if you want. But if you are going to say that it is an issue of experience, then you should see improvements - even within a season. We are not seeing that at all.
They are among the worst P5 teams in every single defensive measure. A well coached team may simply lack the talent to make plays, but will at least look coherent in how they play. I don't see that at all with the defense. It really looks like they have no idea what they are doing out there alot of the time. To me that is simply bad coaching.
Bill Connelly did say, on average, year two was where he saw the bump in his stat profiles. I found the article on Bleacher Report, but it’s not talking about when to expect a turnaround—at least, not directly. This is probably what you’re remembering:
https://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2016/12/27/14088090/new-college-football-coaches
A Boston College blog did cover it though—and there are examples of 4, 5, 6 years or more. It’s not scientific, but they showed their work a little.
A look at some prototypes for BC.
www.bcinterruption.com
We should have seen a defensive improvement by now—more trends than we’ve seen so far. Our players have gotten bigger, stronger and faster (at least one of stronger or faster, sometimes both, depending on the position). Sometimes, it’s tackling high. Sometimes, it’s hitting the wrong hole. Sometimes, it’s thinking someone else is covering your receiver, or biting on the run when it’s a pass.